Bleeding Out
by artigiano
Summary: "Now Danny was facing the very real possibility of having to figure out how to go on without the man he called his best friend, and he'd had no say in getting to this point. He would never know what would have happened had Steve just let Danny make his own choice, would never know if Steve would have walked away from the raid with no more than bruises." A quick h/c oneshot!


**Well, hello there everyone! **

**This is a very angsty/whumpy oneshot that was inspired by an _Imagine Dragons _song off of their first album called "Bleeding Out." **

**This story actually fits into my current series of one shots _Night Visions_, but the version in that has a very different ending-so I suggest you check them both out! Anyway, I couldn't decide how I wanted to end the story, so I figured a compromise would be best and this standalone story was born. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think! **

**Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own _Hawaii Five-0_ or there would not only be a lot more whump, but much more bromance. **

* * *

The team finally got a lead on the location of the weapons and ammo—and the connected arms dealer—which they had been searching for since the beginning of the week. It was a much-needed break in a case that had started off their week in a particularly bad way. On Monday, swimmers had found a body, which had just happened to be that of the star witness in the trial they had been helping the DA prepare for months against aforementioned arms dealer, Marcus Natoli, only days before the trial was set to begin. With her death leaving a gaping hole in the case, Five-0 had been tasked with not only finding her killer, but also finding the proverbial smoking gun to land Natoli behind bars. It had just so happened that a tip called into HPD anonymously had paid off, and so here they were, assembled outside of a warehouse on the docks.

The raid had been planned down the minute, practically, all under McGarrett's watchful eye. They had the element of surprise on their side, and now it was only a matter of waiting for the SEAL's command to go.

HPD officers, SWAT, and Five-0 were all milling around at a safe distance from the target, double-checking equipment and generally preparing, when Steve finally gave the okay. Moving forward to address the collected group, he let his voice quietly carry to everyone in attendance, and not for the first time Danny could see his partner's commanding military presence shine through. "Okay everybody, listen up! Natoli's crew is obviously well armed and very dangerous, so you need to take every precaution possible. Move in teams, at least four to a group. If something happens, at the very least don't get split up from your partner, because these guys have enough firepower not only to keep backup pinned down, but also keep help from getting to you if you're hurt. Now, our goal is to arrest Marcus Natoli, as you've been briefed, and you all have his photo, so keep a lookout. We need him alive, preferably, so don't get trigger-happy. That being said, I'd rather see him bleeding out than any of you—so if it comes down to it, take the shot."

Danny almost snorted at the hypocrisy of McGarrett warning others to not shoot first, but held it in because he suddenly got this feeling in the pit of his stomach like something horrible was about to happen. He looked around at his friends and colleagues, and each of them—including their fearless leader—was wearing a vest, and was carrying extra ammunition and guns with them, just in case. There was nothing that he could spot in this moment to indicate a problem, so he just readied his own weapon and checked his vest once more to calm his nerves. And then, Steve gave the signal, and the group moved as a coordinated unit around the corner and towards the warehouse.

The building appeared empty as they moved in, but Danny could hear Chin and Kono yell out "Five-0" for identification purposes, followed closely by HPD's own shout. Silence greeted them, however, and it was only as they moved a little bit further in that the first shots started ringing out, the bullets whizzing by letting them know that the initial quiet was deceptive.

Immediately, Danny took cover behind a crate, watching in his peripheral vision as Steve did the same next to him. There was a steady stream of gunfire raining down on them, and even with Steve's exceptional aim, neither of them were making any headway in pushing their opponents back. Danny glanced at his partner after hearing him growl in frustration, but his gaze was drawn away from the taller man when one of the HPD officers behind them suddenly stood up in an apparent effort to find a better firing position. Instead, he only succeeded in making himself a better target, and went down with a round to the shoulder. At Steve's insistent hand motioning, his fellow HPD officer dragged him out of the line of fire, but even Danny could see that the man was bleeding heavily and in need of medical attention.

"Get him out of here!" Steve yelled as he continued to lay down suppressing fire. "We'll be fine!"

"Are you sure?" When McGarrett responded emphatically in the affirmative, the younger officer nodded. "I'm going to take him out for help and then I'll be back!" Then, without another word, the officer pulled his partner by the straps of his vest out of the warehouse, leaving a bloody trail behind them.

Danny cursed quietly at the pair, for both getting shot and leaving (even if the latter was only following orders), cursed at Steve for letting them leave and therefore leaving the two of them alone on this side of the warehouse, and finally cursed again, even louder, when the SEAL himself stood up in an effort to change their situation, to end the standoff. He finally managed to take out the man shooting at them, and Danny was about to breathe a sigh of relief when all of a sudden he heard Steve let out a gasp that was tinged with pain, saw him slump down against the crate he had been using for cover.

McGarrett was breathing hard, his eyes scrunched with discomfort. Danny immediately looked for the source, looked for blood to see where his partner was hit, but his actions were stopped quickly when Steve batted his hand away. "I-I'm fine," McGarrett stated, still breathing harder than normal. "M-my vest…my v-vest stopped it." Eyebrows raised at the validity of this statement, Danny nonetheless looked down, watching as his partner fingered the bullet that was lodged in his vest, right below his heart. Seeing the proof of his friend's words, Danny finally let out of the sign of relief that he had been holding.

"That was too close."

His partner let a breathless laugh, still panting slightly. "Tell me about it – hurts like hell. I'm going to have a bruise there the size of Texas."

"It's your own damn fault for standing up, all Rambo style. You're lucky that the idiot didn't hit you somewhere you weren't covered by Kevlar. I mean—" Danny stopped speaking as he was confronted with the sight of his best friend reaching up to undo the straps holding the bullet-ridden vest to his body. "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing? We're still in the middle of a shootout, Steven!"

Steve gave him a look that read _no shit_, and a smug smirk crosses his face. "I'm aware of that, but I can't breathe properly with the vest on—it's too tight, and it's making it worse. We need to finish this and fast, before anyone dies, and I can't focus on what I'm doing if half my attention is just on getting air. I'll let you yell at me later for not following protocol, okay? Let's just do this."

Danny wanted to smack the taller man, but he refrained when he realized that his partner was right. They didn't have the time to waste for Steve to go grab a new vest if they want to both catch Natoli (or kill, which Danny thought was an equally good outcome), and end the fighting before any of the good guys wound up seriously harmed; not to mention Steve was the best shot and tactician here. He was going to be vital going forward, and letting him run out for a new piece of Kevlar could potentially jeopardize everything. He didn't like it, could feel his stress levels already rocketing, but Danny couldn't think of any alternative if they wanted to get out of here anytime soon. So after a few moments, Danny replied tersely, "Fine. But when we move, I go first, okay? I don't need to deal with your sorry ass if you get shot. Again."

Steve just rolled his eyes, but motioned Danny forward with a wave. As Danny moved through the warehouse, maneuvering around boxes and crates full of guns, that bad feeling that he had had at the beginning of the raid intensified, and he almost stopped to make Steve go back and put on a damn vest when suddenly he rounded a corner and there he was. Marcus Natoli with six henchmen, all pointing guns directly at his face.

"Drop your gun, now, and we'll let you live," one of the gunrunners, whom Danny immediately nicknamed Droopy due to his unfortunate face, said loudly. Danny wasn't stupid, nor did he have a death wish, so he lowered his gun to the ground. He didn't stand a chance against his seven armed opponents, and he knew that Steve was going to be coming around that corner any second to save him. He hated having to cooperate, but at the very least, this would hopefully put off any bullets coming his way for the foreseeable future.

He hoped.

In the moment he was losing his weapon, Danny could hear shooting all around him, indicating that the rest of the hit team was holding their ground elsewhere. His attention was brought back to his own situation, though, when Droopy spoke again. "Good. You made the right choice, officer." Droopy appeared to be happy that Danny dropped the gun, although it was slightly hard to tell as neither his face nor his tone changed much. "Now, we have a business meeting that we were trying to get to when you people unfortunately disrupted. Since this is a very important meeting that Mr. Natoli intends on making, I'm going to need you to use that little handy radio I see you wearing and call off the other officers. If you do that, we'll let you go and everything will work out just fine. If you're going to be difficult, well… I think you can figure out what will happened."

Danny had no intentions of following this particular order, and he was in the midst of trying to figure out how to tell the men in front of him to go to hell, when Steve—who had apparently been further behind him than Danny had initially realized—finally made it around the corner. The SEAL had his gun held out in front of him, but unlike in Danny's case, the gunrunners didn't give him a chance to surrender. Maybe it was because they were already jumpy with Danny's sudden appearance or just didn't want another police officer involved, but whatever the reason, when Steve moved around the crate, he was met with a bullet to his chest, almost where the one had hit his vest earlier.

Except, this time, he wasn't wearing a vest.

Danny watched helplessly as his partner staggered back from the force of the bullet, blood immediately coloring the grey t-shirt he chose to wear this morning. Danny could see the pain written all over his partner's face, but McGarrett, despite the agony he must have been in, didn't make a sound. He fell to his knees, and just knelt there, silently, as though unable to speak. The wound was pumping out blood quickly, too quickly, and Danny's throat felt like it was closing as his mind finally registered that the wound was much too close to his best friend's heart. As the stain around the injury grew, the Jersey detective gasped with the awful realization that he was effectively watching his partner's life drain out before his eyes.

One of the other thugs who wasn't currently keeping Danny at gun point moved over to Steve and hauled him up, finally causing the Super SEAL to utter a painful moan as the movement jarred his wound. His eyes were more than a little glossy, but the dark blue eyes still rose up to meet Danny's and the message there was clear: don't panic, don't worry about him, and most of all, don't do anything stupid.

As soon as Steve read Danny's expression that his message was received, the SEAL's eyes started to drift close. This displeased the thug holding Steve up, keeping the SEEAL flush against his body, and forced McGarrett's eyes back open by shoving the barrel of his pistol into the open hole on Steve's chest. "You have to stay with us, Officer, or else you're going to miss your friend's response," Natoli stated calmly. At Natoli's coolly cruel words, Danny's heart clenched with the knowledge that his partner must be in a world of pain and that there wasn't a damn thing either of them could do about it.

"Well," Natoli continued, speaking slowly even though the sounds of the gunfight were drawing ever closer, the chance for the escape getting slimmer. "Now that we've all joined the party, let's try this again." Natoli started walking closer to Steve, and the man holding Danny's partner pushed the gun further into the bleeding chest wound at his boss's prompting. "As I was explaining to this officer here, we have no interest in getting caught and have planned a nice little getaway, one that was so rudely interrupted by this raid. You both have the capabilities to call this whole thing off or move your men in another direction—I don't really care what happens just so long as I don't see any cops in the very near future. But Blondie over here seemed disinclined to acquiesce to my request. Thankfully, you've provided us with a lovely little bit of leverage."

Natoli turned back to Danny, and it was all that 'Blondie' could do not to tackle the gunrunner and pummel him to death out of sheer fury for what was happening to Steve, despite the gun pointed in his own direction. His partner needed a doctor in the worst possible way, but right now it seemed more likely that he was going to bleed out in this godforsaken warehouse before he ever got that chance. "Now, I'm sure you would like to get this man some help, but that's not going to happen unless you call off the raid. And if you don't, well I suppose I'll just kill you both and take my chances."

Steve seemed to be barely hanging on to consciousness, but he apparently was still aware enough to send a small, almost imperceptible shake of the head in Danny's direction. It was enough to let Danny know that Steve didn't want him doing anything—especially calling off HPD. Danny wanted to completely disregard his partner's wishes, and save his life in the process, for he knew that if he listened to what McGarrett wanted, he'd be sacrificing the man's life and he didn't know that he could live with himself after that.

Danny was frozen with indecision, torn between his partner's life and catching these men, between what was right for his ohana and what was right for society. His gun was on the floor, too far to get to it without getting himself shot, and no way to create a distraction big enough to be able to get to it surreptitiously. All eyes were on him, and despite the continuing _pops_ of the raid all around them, it seemed like they were in a bubble of silence, separated from it all. Danny met Steve's glazed eyes and opened his mouth to speak—what answer he was going to give still undecided—when the thug holding a gun to his face removed the safety at Natoli's behest, and Danny knew that whatever was going to happen, whatever it was going to be, it was going to happen in the next few seconds.

He risked glancing from the gun in his face to his partner, and in doing so he once more caught sight of an almost imperceptible movement from his partner's direction. Steve's hands had been wrapped around the gun being pressed into his own wound, over the lackey's hand, and one of Steve's fingers was inching towards the trigger. It took just a moment too long for Danny to realize what Steve was planning, and by the time he did it was too late to do anything. He met his partner's eyes for a moment, and time seemed to stand still as Danny read everything laid out by those normally guarded eyes: determination, apology, and love. Then the moment was gone, and it was all Danny could do to simply watch as Steve pulled the trigger, sending a bullet through the already existing wound track and into the body of the man holding up him up. Natoli's lackey dropped to the floor immediately; creating enough of a distraction to let Danny grab his gun from the ground and, in the confusion, look to Steve.

Steve, who was barely conscious, who was barely alive, was still holding the gun and firing at Natoli's men from where he lay. Taking that cue, Danny ducked for cover himself and opened fire on Natoli's crew. The surrounding gunfire grew closer, the noises of the rest of their team getting louder, and within a few moments everyone in their isolated pocket was either dead or incapacitated thanks to the arrival of the cavalry.

Before the last cuffs had been snapped on the wrists of the last criminal left alive, Danny was at Steve's side. In the few minutes since being shot and then shooting himself again, the SEAL's face had turned a pale, ashen color, scaring Danny more than he would have liked to admit. There was blood pooling around Steve's chest where he lay against a crate, and his t-shirt was soaked through. There was too much blood, and as Danny's eyes blurred with tears, the only thing left to see was red. So much red. _Too _much red. He blinked away his tears as fast as possible and yelled out to the officer standing next to him "Call an ambulance right now!"

As soon as he spoke, it brought to everyone's attention to the fact that there was a man down, that Steve was in bad shape. In a flurry of motion, the officer next to him left to get a medic and the rest of Five-0 took his place by Steve's side.

Danny had positioned himself so that Steve was lying against his knees, instead of the boxes, and he pushed both his hands against the wound to try to stop the bleeding. Kono and Chin immediately both moved to each take one of Steve's hands, and in the few seconds that Danny glanced away to watch the cousins do this and look back at Steve's face, his partner's eyes had slid closed. Not daring to take his hand off of the wound, Danny settled for yelling at his best friend instead of slapping his face, as was his first instinct. "Hey! Come on, Steven, you've got to stay with me. Come on, babe, you've got to stay awake."

Danny's shout seemed to work marginally, and the SEAL's eyes opened slightly. The injured man tried to nod in acknowledgment of Danny's directive, but just coughed instead, blood bubbling at the edge of his mouth. "I'm—it's cold, Danny," Steve whispered, and damn in if Danny didn't start crying more earnestly at that. Steve had endured torture, probably more times than Danny even knew about, and had been shot before on multiple occasions, had been in the most harrowing situations, but out of all the things he survived, Danny knew this would be the bullet to kill him. This was just too well placed not to be lethal. And the unfairness of it all killed him.

"You're going to be fine, Steve. I promise." Tears were coursing down Danny's face at this point because even he didn't believe what he was saying, and he was sure Steve knew it too. Unless help got there in the next few minutes, this was going to be the end. And maybe even then. "Everything is going to be okay. Just hold on. Just hold on for me. "

Steve coughed again, and more blood came up. "Y-you're my best friend, y-you know—"

"No! You are not saying goodbye, Steven. You're not going to..." Danny choked on the word _die_, and he couldn't get it past the lump in his throat. "You're going to be fine." He expected Steve to answer him, to either confirm or deny Danny's statement, but all he was met with was silence. The blonde had to choke back a sob when he realized that Steve's eyes had slid closed again, and where he could feel a heartbeat before, there wasn't one now. "Steve! Steve!" Danny pressed a little harder on the wound, but there was still no response. "Steven!"

Nothing. No response and certainly no heartbeat.

At that moment, the paramedics finally arrived and pushed the three other members of Five-0 away from their fallen leader. Danny heard them shout that Steve had no pulse, watched them shock his partner's heart in hopes of restarting it, watched them do it again. And again.

By now, Kono was crying too, and Chin looked like he wanted to vomit. Finally the EMTs got a pulse, and within moments they were loading Steve onto a stretcher and moving into the waiting ambulance to take him away. They were just about to the bus when Chin shoved Danny forward. "Go! One of us needs to be there with him." The unspoken acknowledgment that Steve shouldn't die surrounded by strangers made Danny's heart sink even further, if possible, but he didn't—couldn't—dispute it.

So he nodded and ran after the stretcher, not one hundred percent positive that he wanted to be the one in the vehicle to be with Steve at that moment, but also completely positive that he would hate himself if he gave his seat up to someone else. He'd been with Steve through so much—he wasn't giving up on him now. He made it to the ambulance just before they slammed the doors shut, jumping in before they could tell him no. After the EMT's sad acknowledgement of his situation, Danny just grabbed his best friend's hand, closed his eyes, and prayed.

* * *

They waited for hours. Unsurprisingly, this was Danny's least favorite part—this limbo, this in between period where he didn't know if his partner was alive or dead at that very moment, no way of knowing if he should be mourning or hopeful. It was purgatory, not knowing if the doctor was going to come out and irrevocably change their lives or say that McGarrett was going to live to fight another day. But there was something worse about the endless waiting this time, something that most likely had to do with the fact that he still felt Steve's blood on his hands, that all he could see when he closed his eyes was the vivid red of his best friend's blood, that he could still feel the sensation of McGarrett's heart stopping under his fingers.

He should have known that because the waiting was worse, the corresponding conversation with the doctor would be worse. And it was worse. Much worse.

Danny tried to focus on the doctor's words, but after hearing the man in bloodstained shoes say "too much blood loss" the roaring in his ears made it hard to concentrate. He caught snippets of the rest: _heart stopped for too long, we did all we could_, _coma_ and finally _I'm sorry_. The rushing in his ears got louder and it was all he could to do stay upright, to pay any bit of attention to what the doctor was telling them. But when he finally tuned back in and heard the doctor comment on pulling the plug, Danny was out of his seat like a shot and out the door in his borrowed scrubs before anyone could stop him.

When Chin finally found him, he was sitting in the middle of the parking lot, knees up to his chest, staring at the sky. "You know," the older Hawaiian man remarked, "from what you said, this was his choice." When Danny didn't respond, Chin continued. "He knew that it would most likely kill him, but he made the choice to save you—to save us, to save anyone who would have been hurt by Natoli's actions—no matter what the cost was to him. Don't dishonor him by ignoring that. Don't be angry with him and forget the fact that he did it for _you_. He made his choice, and I hate the outcome, more than you know. I hate that he coded for six minutes and they're not sure about brain activity and that we might have actually, finally, lost him today; I hate that and I know you do too, but don't hate _him_. Natoli would have shot you both if Steve hadn't done what he did, and he knew it. He did this for you, for Grace, so don't invalidate that."

Danny just shook his head, not arguing with his teammate's words, not out of agreement but because he was unable to argue with anything, to feel anything other than the hollowness that had taken up residence in his chest. Logically he could agree with what Chin had said, could recognize his partner's sacrifice, could appreciate how his best friend had closed his eyes and made his sacrifice to bleed out rather than risk either Danny making an impossible choice or the blonde's life. He could understand all that on a rational level, but on an emotional one, it was a completely different story.

He was a wreck, and despite what Chin had said, he did hate Steve right now. He hated that Steve had taken the choice out of his hands, that his partner had executively decided that it was okay to deprive them all of his presence in their lives without seeming to consider the repercussions. He hated Steve because he had thought this was the best choice to make, and whether it was or not could be evaluated later, but right now Danny hated Steve with every fiber of his being. He had made a unilateral decision and now…

Now Danny was facing the very real possibility of having to figure out how to go on without the man he called his best friend, his brother, and he'd had no say in getting to this point. He would never know what would have happened had Steve just let Danny make his own choice, would never know if Steve would have walked away from the raid with no more than bruises.

So Danny just shook his head again, still not responding to anything Chin had said. He quietly accepted the older man's offered hand to help him get up, but shook off Chin's hand on his shoulder. That hand meant comfort and he was too paradoxically both too numb and too angry to accept it. He turned his eyes towards the sky once more, hoping to find something there, but went back inside the hospital when nothing came.

* * *

Somehow—miraculously, surprisingly, wonderfully—Steve made it through the night. The doctor had all but assured them because of the blood loss and the coma Steve had slipped into after the surgery that this night would most likely be the SEAL's last on this Earth. But somehow, against all odds, and in an exact opposite move of the day before, Steve's heart kept on beating.

That didn't mean, of course, that the doctor's words were any more comforting than the night before. Instead of saying that the members of Five-0 needed to prepare to say their goodbyes immediately, they cautiously projected that Steve might live through the next day, but that it didn't look good. His blood pressure was still too low; his heart had stopped for too long. There were whispered concerns about brain damage, but Danny was ignoring them; ignoring them for the whispers in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like the SEAL lying motionless on the bed beside him, the ones that said that somehow, everything was going to be okay.

He knew he was being futilely optimistic, but there was something about waking up the next morning, having spent a few hours of feverish sleep plagued with terribly colorful dreams, with his partner still amongst the land of the living that made him more hopeful than the night before. He still felt completely adrift, lost and angry, overwhelmed with the still potential loss of his best friend. The image behind his eyelids was still that of his brother choosing to shoot himself, choosing to bleed out on a dank warehouse floor, and he knew it would be something he would take with him to the grave.

But the fact that Steve hadn't died in the middle of the night, hadn't bottomed out when everyone thought he would, acted like a balm to some of Danny's soul shredding anger. He kept going back to what Chin had told him the night before in the parking lot about it being Steve's choice, and somehow in the light of day it made a bit more sense to him. The numbness that had seeped into his bones the previous evening had eased, just slightly, as he was finally able to realize the depth of devotion that McGarrett had for him.

Once they reached a point of such a mutually strong friendship, he'd always known that Steve would do anything for him, had proven it time and time again with actions both small and large. And he'd always known, even since their early tumultuous days, that the SEAL would willingly take a bullet for him, for any member of the team. But he'd never been in quite the situation where the test of loyalty had been that strong and where the person had passed the test.

So with all of those thoughts bouncing around his head, he stayed in the chair next to his partner's bed and ignored the concerned looks of the doctors and nurses, ignored what he knew they all thought, and somehow reconditioned his mind to believe that this couldn't possibly be the end. He made himself believe that Steve living through a night that by all rights should have killed him meant that the universe was sparing them, that the last thing Steve McGarrett did on this planet was not going to be saying goodbye with blood on his lips.

* * *

It'd been two and a half weeks. McGarrett had been moved out of the ICU and into a private room, but all it really did was spare Danny and his teammates the increasingly pitying looks of the hospital staff, as Steve stayed lifeless in a hospital bed day after day.

Not totally lifeless, as the steady heartbeat of the monitor reminded Danny as it kept time to his own. Whatever else had happened, whatever else would come, that steady beeping was keeping the members of Five-0 grounded in a way nothing else was right now.

At this point, the doctors weren't entirely sure what to tell them. It appeared as though Steve's brain activity was normal, despite his being without oxygen for minutes on end, and after the first few harrowing days and countless blood transfusions, his blood pressure had even returned to where it was supposed to be. But despite the physical recovery, the SEAL just wasn't waking up.

After the first four days, Chin and Kono had made him go home, made him return to some sort of normalcy again. They weren't taking any new cases, weren't even being asked by the governor who had respectfully sent everything to HPD, but the cousins had decided that his days were not going to be spent inside the hospital just because that was where his best friend was, had decided to remind him of his daughter and her needs as well. So they'd worked out a schedule, each taking a rotation staying with Steve just in case he woke up. Or in case the unthinkable happened, which since the day of the raid wasn't so unthinkable anymore. Admittedly, Danny was still spending more than his fair share of time there, but with no desire to work on a case without his partner and nothing else to take his mind off of things, he'd found some books and used the time to take the most horrible vacation in the world.

It was one of those times where he was by himself with McGarrett, the cousins both out, and the silence got to be too heavy to sit and read anymore. So, with a stretch and a crack of his back, Danny moved over to where his partner lay still on his bed, nasal cannula providing crisp oxygen to his lungs, and casually took his best friend's hand in his own.

Danny had been doing that a lot recently. The need to have a physical connection, the need to have a reminder that Steve was still alive and warm, that blood was still pumping through his veins, was too strong to ignore at times. Physical contact wasn't necessarily something he'd sought out before from his best friend, had never been the type to be overly touchy-feely, but in this case, Danny couldn't help but let into his instinct to reassure himself that it wasn't over. Not yet.

The blonde squeezed the tan hand in his, and spoke quietly to a man he wasn't even sure could hear him. "You've got to come back, Steve. You've got to wake up and come back. You've got responsibilities to us here, to your _ohana_. You've got to help me scare boys away from my daughter and you've got to stick around and be my partner for years to come. Don't go where I can't follow, babe. Don't do that to me." He swallowed down the lump in his throat, used to the sensation at this point. "Don't go."

Danny hoped with all he had that he'd get a squeeze of his hand in response, that cliché as it was his partner would choose then to wake up and grace them all with his presence again. But nothing happened and all Danny was left with was the steady beeping of the heart monitor.

It was all he was left with for another week.

It had been so long at this point that some of the doctors were asking about final wishes, about arrangements, about things Danny didn't want to even think about. His only comfort was that he saw the same rejection in Chin and Kono's faces every time the doctors asked, and the united front was enough support to keep him firm in the face of questions no one ever wanted asked.

It was just as one of these conversations was taking place that all of a sudden something shifted in the room. Danny felt it, sensed a minute change, and he looked around quickly to determine what it was before all of a sudden the steady beeping that he'd been listening to for almost a month started speeding up. He was at his partner's side before the doctor had even made his way over, Steve's hand already in his. Frantically, he looked up at the physician, his own panic mirrored on the cousins' faces. "What's going on?"

The doctor opened his mouth to speak, but the voice that came out wasn't his. Instead the rough voice that greeted their ears was one Danny never thought he'd actually hear again. And while it was a groan rather than intelligible words, it was enough to make Danny smile for the first in weeks.

"Steve? Steve, can you hear me?" Danny's eyes were glued to his partner's face, ignoring everything and everyone else in the room. "Come on babe, open your eyes." He could see his partner's eyes moving rapidly beneath his eyelids, and so he squeezed McGarrett's hand in support, overjoyed when the man squeezed weakly back.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity to the Jersey detective, confused blue eyes slid open to meet his own. "D'ny?"

He couldn't have denied the tears that slipped out of his eyes even if he'd wanted to. "Yeah, babe, I'm here. We're all here."

"Mmm," was the tired response, but that was all Danny had the chance to get before the doctor was moving in, penlight in hand, names of tests already slipping out of his mouth to the nurse as the miraculous consciousness was examined. But it was enough for Danny, because for once his partner had listened to him, and for once he'd done what was told and come back to them.

* * *

"You're hovering."

"You're weak, so forgive me if I'm a little bit worried about you making it up the stairs by yourself."

"You've been hovering since I got out of the hospital."

"It's too soon, you should still—"

"Danny, I'm fine. For once, I listened to the doctor's and stayed as long as they wanted me to," the _just to make you happy _went unspoken, "and they said that I was perfectly fine to leave today. All my tests came back clean, I've almost completely recovered from everything, and so I got released. Stop hovering."

"You were unconscious for almost a month—your legs are weak and the doctors told you to take it easy, so yes, I'm going to hover until I make sure that you don't fall down the stairs and break your neck."

Danny was met with a sigh, but nary another argument as he closely followed his partner the rest of the way up the stairs. It'd been like this in the week since his partner had woken up and discovered all that had passed since the raid—and aside from some minor disagreements, Steve wasn't saying or doing anything to start an argument or push back against Danny's wishes. And while Danny was overwhelmingly overjoyed that he could mother his partner as much as he wanted without protest, he could freely admit that it was strange. Their normal banter, their balance, was off somehow and while it was nice, the blonde knew that a conversation was in order to get back to where they were before everything went to shit.

But he held his tongue for their duration of the trip up the stairs, and until he'd essentially tucked his partner into bed. It was only then that he finally cleared his throat, sat on the edge of the bed, and worked up the courage to speak to the man that he would gladly give up everything for. "Are, uh, we okay?"

McGarrett's eyebrows rose quickly. "Of course. Why would you ask?"

Running a hand through his hand, Danny took a breath before responding. "You're being really complacent with everything. You stayed in the hospital as long as your doctor wanted without argument, you're letting me hang around and hover over you like you usually yell at me for, and you're keeping your mouth shut. So what is it that's going on?" Steve didn't immediately say anything in response, and before he could, Danny continued. "When you did that in the warehouse, when you…you know, I thought that was it. I know you did too, so don't bother denying it. And then the surgeon told us that there was no hope, that you'd lost too much blood, I knew that it was. But then, then you somehow pulled through and didn't…didn't, you know, and then the doctors weren't sure what exactly to tell us because they weren't sure themselves what was happening, and…" He trailed off, not sure where he was going with it but needing to get it off his chest. "I watched you all but bleed out on a dirty floor and then waited too long for you to wake up, not knowing if you were going to even be the same, and now you're being complacent and it's not _you_. So I just need to know that we're okay, that you're okay that everything is going to be okay."

During his little speech, Steve had moved into a sitting position and now he placed a hand lightly on Danny's knee, answering in a roundabout way. "I heard you, you know that? It's not like I was aware or anything but things started to get lighter at some point and then I heard you. And you told me not to go, and so I didn't. And even when I woke up, I could tell how anxious you were, like I was going to slip away again, so…" He trailed off with a shrug. "I figured it would be better for your peace of mind just to do what you were going to do and not fight you on it. And to be completely honest, this whole thing scared me too and you being there—even if you have been unrelenting in your need to check up on me—has been comforting." McGarrett squeezed Danny's knee again, but didn't remove his land like he might have normally. "So we're totally, one hundred percent fine. Just adjusting to the fact that I'm still alive."

Danny nodded and cleared his throat, unwilling to admit to himself that his partner's words had brought tears to his eyes. "I'm, um, glad you are. Alive, I mean."

Steve's laugh was shaky, and Danny could hear the underlying emotion in it. "Me too, Danno. Me too."

"You've got to promise me one thing though, okay? You need to stop doing that."

The SEAL's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Doing what?"

"Getting yourself shot trying to save the day. I'm not ready to lose you, alright? You're my best friend and I would like to be able to annoy each other in the old folk's home one day, not be burying you before your time. And I know, we're in a dangerous line of work, things happen, blah blah blah. But you've got to tone it down—I can't keep being terrified that every bust we do is going to be our last. You've got to stop putting yourself in the line of fire for me."

"Never." The response was fast and determined. "You're my partner and _my _best friend, and I'm not going to change the way I do things because my number one job is always going to be to keep you safe. I can't lose you. You're my family, you're all I've got left. _You_ keep me here, Danny. You're not here, and I'm back in the Navy, living like the soldier I am. But you—you're my brother, and you've kept me in one place longer than anyone else ever has."

Danny sighed, but was unable to fight in the face of his partner's clear loyalty and love. "Fine. But will you at least spread the life-risking injuries around a bit? So that I'm not always the one losing my mind?"

Steve shook his head, a small smile lighting up his face. "Never—you're a pain in the ass to be around when you're injured. All you do is bitch and moan and—wait. Never mind. That's you on a good day."

And just like that, things settled back into place, exactly as they should be, and Danny didn't even bother to try to stop his snarky response. "Just wait 'till your better, my friend. I'll let your snarky comment go this time since you're recovering, but just remember, karma's a bitch. I'll have my revenge."

The SEAL's smile was even larger this time. "Looking forward to it."

And that, right there, made Danny's grin in response almost painful because somehow, wonderfully, magically, there'd be a future for the two of them to look forward to.

* * *

**Well, hopefully that satisfied all of y'all who are reading _Night Visions_ and wanted a bit of a lighter ending to that story! And if this is the first time you're hearing about my other story but love plenty of Steve angst/whump, I invite you to go check it out! **

**And with that, drop me a line and let me know what you thought of the story! **

**Charlotte **


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